8-year-old drummer makes Guinness World Records

Macomb Daily staff photo by Ray J. Skowronek
Julian Pavone of Macomb Township, 8, was named the world’s youngest professional drummer by Guinness World Records at the tender age of 5 years, 10 months, 3 days. Now his achievement is included in the 2013 edition of Guinness World Records (published by Guinness World Records, $28.95).

Julian Pavone has gone from rock-a-bye baby to a rockin’, record-breaking kid.

The Macomb Township youngster, now 8, was named the world’s youngest professional drummer by Guinness World Records. He snagged that title at the tender age of 5 years, 10 months, 3 days. Now his achievement is in bookstores everywhere as he is included in the 2013 edition of Guinness World Records (published by Guinness World Records, $28.95). Turn to page 106 of the big, glossy book and there sits young Julian, ready to bang out a beat.

While Julian was given the title at age 5, that’s hardly when he began. He has been pounding away on the drums since before he could walk or speak.

Dad Bernardino Pavone, who had his own drum set, sat behind his skins, set Julian on his lap and put a pair of sticks in his bambino’s hands when he was a mere 3 months old. It’s something just about any kid would enjoy, but it was clearly something more for Julian. By the age of 6 months, the tyke was banging away on the set while seated in his highchair. By 9 months, Pavone says his son could hold a beat, so Julian’s been drumming pretty much his entire life, though the instrument is not the whole picture.

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Music lessons are said to be good for the brain, good for math skills, and Julian’s got a lot of numbers on his table:

He has been taking formal drumming lessons since the age of 4. Before he played by ear. He tends to play on his 22-piece drum set, which includes 17 cymbals and a double bass, but that’s just one of nine sets he has, along with several other instruments set up in the basement of the family home — yes, it’s soundproofed — where he practices three to five hours most days.

He has six drum teachers — including Dennis Sheridan, George Dunn, Joe Leone and Gregg Bissonette — plus he takes voice, dance and piano lessons. While being interviewed, Julian gave a preview on the ivories of his latest lesson, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

Besides being taught, he has ended up doing a bit of teaching himself, including his dad, younger sister Annalisa and some classmate friends at University Liggett School.

The numbers keep adding up, too: Julian has made hundreds of TV appearances, been featured in documentaries, newspapers, magazines and books (including “Sticks and Skins” — a photo-biography book about drumming — where he shares the company of legendary beat-keepers such as Ringo Starr and Rush’s Neal Peart).

In the meantime he continues to learn and play, solo and with his band, the Julian Pavone Experience — jazz, rock, blues, you name it — “I like it all,” he says.

While Julian’s already met a lot of famous folks in his travels, there remain others he’d like to meet or wishes he could have met, including the Beatles’ Ringo Starr and John Lennon, or Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham. “That would have been cool,” he says.

Catch Julian and his Julian Pavone Experience band Dec. 1 at Sugar Bush Tavern in Eastpointe. Show time is 8:30 p.m., and there’s no cover, but donations will benefit the Teen Outreach Center in Eastpointe.